F 68 



I B63 

| Copy 1 



(Tl)rist Purifying l)is ®cmplc ; or, tl)c Principle of tlje Puritans. 



8EEMON 



l'KKACUED IN THK 



Mount Vernon Church of Christ 



(Ret. De. Kirk's), 



BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, 



Sabbath, Dec. 24, 1865, "Forefathers' Day" 



Rev. J. BLANCH ARD, 

PRKHIDXNT VII1TOX COLLEGE, WH1A10K, ILLINOIS. 



" <Iulu tbtsr things jjenrr." — Jno. 2:16. 



BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY THK CONGREGATIONAL BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 

1 8 6 G . 



Christ fltorifping l)is Senile; or, tljc principle of tljc puritans. 



SEEMON 



PREACHED IN THE 



Mount Vernon Church of Christ 



(Rev. Dr. Kirk's), 



BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS, 



Sabbath, Dec. 24, 1865, "Forefathers' Day" 



Eev. J. BLAiXCIIABD, 

PRESIDENT W H E A T N COLLEGE, WHEATON, ILLINOIS. 



(Ukc thrsr things hcncr." — Jno. 2; 16. 




BOSTON: 

PUBLISHED BY THE CONGREGATIONAL BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 
l~ 18GG. 






08 






C.imbviOgc Press. 

D A K [ N AND M E T C A L K. 



i ' 






7 



S E R M N . 



And Jesus went up to Jerusalem, and found in the temple those that sold 
oxen, and sheep, and doves, and the changers of money, sitting : adn, 
when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of 
the temple; and the sheep and the oxen; and poured out the changers' 
money, and overthrew the tables; and said unto them that sold doves, 
Take these things hence, make not my Father's house an house of mer- 
chandise. — John ii. 13-16. 

It would seem that our Lord twice purified his temple 
of things which had not his warrant to be there, — once 
at the beginning of his ministry (John ii. 14), and once 
at its close (Matt. xxi. 12); and both instances were 
followed by wonderful manifestations of his power in 
healing the body, of his wisdom in teaching, and his 
grace in saving the people. 

And if it were not that his whole person and work are 
so wonderful, this scene would surely seem most wonder- 
ful : — the meek and lowly Jesus, in the garb, perhaps, of 
a rustic artisan, and followed by a few disciples, plain and 
humble like himself, in the heart of that haughty me- 
tropolis (and no pride is like the pride of priests), in the 
temple of its national worship, assailing, denouncing, and 
with a scourge of small cords, driving out, like a herd of 
cowering slaves, along with their own cattle, those whom 
religion had made confident, and money had made bold ! 



Jesus Christ closed the Jewish dispensation, and found- 
ed the Christian church ; and as the Father sent him into 
the world, "even so" has he sent us. (John xvii. 18.) 
What, therefore, he did in his temple, we are to do in his 
church. 

It is a serious mistake to suppose the New Testament 
to be more lax than the Old ; to imagine that Christ cares 
less for the purity of his churches than he did for that of 
his Temple. True, the Old Testament is formal, and 
the New, spiritual, — that is, in the New, the form is not 
the essence of the commandment ; neither, indeed, was 
it in the old, for, even then, God would " have mercy, 
and not sacrifice." (Matt. ix. 13.) But the difference 
between them is this : In the Old Testament the spirit 
is reached through the form ; while in the New, the 
form is required by the spirit. But both are precise, 
for in the Old Testament church positively nothing 
was left to human invention ; rites, altars, implements, 
even to the tongs and snuffers, all, literally and ab- 
solutely, everything was made and ordered " as the 
Lord commanded Moses." "For see, saith he, that thou 
make all things according to the pattern showed to 
thee in the mount." (Heb. viii. 5.) 

And the New Testament precept is equally compre- 
hensive and equally minute, " teaching them to ob- 
serve all things whatsoever I have commanded you." 
(Matt, xxviii. 20.) And in religion who shall dare 
to add anything which Christ has not commanded ? 

And for insisting on what God commands, and ex- 
cluding everything else from the religion and churches 



of Christ, reason is as imperative as Scripture. If 
children offend a parent by breaking his laws, no 
human being can know and tell what those children 
are to do to make amends and please that parent 
but himself; and how much more when men have 
offended their " Father in heaven," can no one tell 
them what to do, but God ! And if the neighbor who 
comes in, in your absence, and adds to or alters your 
directions, is guilty of impertinence and folly toward 
yourself, as well as a fatal and terrible wrong to your 
children, what name shall be given to his conduct 
who comes in between God and us, his erring crea- 
tures, " teaching for doctrines the commandments of 
men " ? 

In the Christian reformatory movement of the sixteenth 
century, sublime as it was, if we may trust D'Aubigne, 
there was one dire mistake. Luther determined to 
leave standing in the churches whatever was not for- 
bidden by the Scriptures; while others justly insisted 
on turning out of the churches everything which 
God had not put into them. The word of Luther 
still was, " Where is it forbidden ? " that of some less 
prominent reformers, " Where is it commanded ? " The 
word of Luther prevailed ; and the present condition 
of Christian churches in Europe is the practical com- 
ment : the Sabbath desecrated, the churches strong, 
the gospel weak, and Christ himself, the living Sav- 
iour, pushed aside by forms and rites and governments, 
which men have instituted in his name ; while " dark- 
ness covers the earth, and gross darkness the people." 
1* 



" The Puritans," whose memory we this day hal- 
low and keep green, were so called, not because 
they claimed to be purer than their neighbors, but 
because they were resolved to "purify" the churches, 
by reducing their doctrines, rites, and government to 
the simple standard of God's word. Their chief dif- 
ficulty was with spurious church government and rites. 
We are told by their historian, Neal (vol. i. 108), 
that at first " there was no difference in doctrine be- 
tween the Puritans and Conformists." But we, the 
descendants of those Puritans, have in this respect re- 
versed their ideas. We have sometimes split the very 
hairs of doctrine. They, the Puritans, seeing the 
churches of Christ were originally corrupted in their 
government first, and next in their rites, and last of 
all in doctrine, — false doctrine being brought in to 
cover and defend those practical corruptions which 
made and named the " dark ages," which, indeed, were 
nothing but ages of priest-rites and despotism ; see- 
ing this, I say, the controversies of the Puritans 
turned less on doctrines than on spurious and man- 
contrived rites ; and they insisted that men might 
not manufacture church governments for Go I ! 

In 1549, the learned and pious Hooper refused 
to be consecrated in Episcopal robes ; and as this 
was the entering wedge of separation, the Puritans 
were sneered at as "embroiling the Christian world 
for a garment." It was not, however, the garment, 
but what that garment covered, which distressed them. 
" Si tn diaboli pompom oderis" they quoted to Arch- 



7 



bishop Parker from Tertullian, " guicquid ex ea attl- 
geris id scias esse idolatnamr 1 They believed that the 
robes of idolatry were idolatrous ; and to wear them 
was to practise idolatry. They objected to diocesan 
bishops. They condemned lordly and unchristian titles.. 
They hated church despotism. They denied the Apoc- 
rypha. They disliked Christmas, and the festivals to 
which the other " masses " gave rise. They would not 
kneel at communion, because it was worshipping the 
host. They would not make the sign of the cross, 
because it was a piece of conjuring to keep off the 
devil ; nor bow the knee when the name o Jesus 
occurred in the service, because it was founded on a 
false interpretation. 

But the principle underlying all their objections 
was simply this : They wanted God's religion, and 
not man's ; Abel's religion, and not Cain's ; Judah's 
and not Jeroboam's ; the religion which God gives in 
the mount, and not that which Aaron manufactures at 
its base ; a religion of God's appointment, and not of 
man's devices. 

And the question for us this day, is, Were those 

PURITANS RIGHT IN THEIR CARDINAL PRINCIPLE, OR NOT? 

The world has not forgotten that they hung witches, 
nor is likely to, while a cold, Christless, scriptureless 
rationalism lives to remind us of it; nor that they 
kept up, for a time, the bad fashion, which they learned 
in England, of inflicting civil penalties for religious 
error. 

1 If you hate the pomp of the devil, then know that whatever of that you come in 
contact with, is idolatry. 



But the question is, was their separation from the 
rites and government of their State church based on 
a folly or a fact? Is it true that God has given us 
a religion, or may men make one ? or, if not make 
one outright, may they patch and splinter at will 
the religion which is given us of God ? 

It is now three solid centuries since Bradshaw pub- 
lished his " English Puritanism." Since that time the 
three systems then designated by their leading ideas; 
" Puritanism," " Presbytery," and " Prelacy," have in 
this country, Scotland, and England, "walked down, side 
by side, through three centuries. I trust that the 
mere glance at them we can now take will enable 
every honest mind to try these three systems by the 
Saviour's test, — their fruits. 

But, before discussing the systems, let us carefully 
distinguish them from the "faith of Christ," which they 
all hold and have ever held in common. The English 
or Episcopal church has had her martyrs, who ab- 
horred auricular confession, the mass, enforced celibacy, 
and generally the inventions and sorceries of Rome. 
And no enlightened Puritan wishes to ignore the 
glorious record which Presbyterians have given to the 
world, particularly in their bloodless redemption of 
Scotland from Popery; and later, when eighteen thou- 
sand Presbyterians, in twenty-five years, suffered perse- 
cution ; many, even unto death ; many more to ban- 
ishment ; and more still, in the prisons of Dunnottar 
Castle and the Bass, during the bloody and terrible 
struggle of the Stuarts to force Prelacy upon Scotland. 



The Protestant who does not feel his heart thrill, and 
his eye moisten at the times of "Dundee," and "Mar- 
tyrs," — who does not cherish with a holy pride the 
memories of those Presbyterians who stood calmly 
on soil wet with their own blood, for " Christ's crown 
and covenant" against the inventions of Prelacv and 
the Pope, — is either a bad Protestant or a blind one. 

Nor do we wish to ignore or forget the precious 
truth which other Christian denominations have held 
and taught, and still hold and teach, in our own coun- 
try, and at the present day. Wherever there is a 
living faith in Christ, there is a Christian brother ; 
and as such, we hail and love him, though for his 
" wood, hay, and stubble," he may exclude us from 
his communion, or shut us from his desk. Nay, even 
the poor Papist may possibly find Christ amid his 
sacraments ; ay, and trust him too in spite of his 
forms. The meek Papist, Fenelon, may teach Protest- 
ants the gentler Christian graces, and the lion-hearted 
Luther find Christ while practising penance upon a 
stone stairway at Pome. 

But let us distinguish the things which differ. Two 
spirits, of very opposite natures, seem to have striven 
at the same time within the body of the youth in the 
gospel, whose father brought him to Christ, the one 
healing, the other rending him. (Mark ix. 26.) And 
surely if the Spirit of God and of Satan can be 
working in the same person at the same moment, 
there is, at least, no inherent absurdity in supposing 
that in the religious systems now existing and com- 



10 



peting for our acceptance, there may be elements at 
work as opposite in their nature as light is to dark- 
ness, or as Satan is to Christ. If, therefore, in this 
discussion, I attribute some things in organizations 
called churches to the "Prince of this world" (John 
xii. 31), let me not be accused of unchurching churches, 
or unchristianizing men. 

Further, it was among the earliest national utterances 
of Abraham Lincoln, that " No country can permanently 
endure part slave, and part free ; " and its truth has since 
been verified, at least in this country, by the provi- 
dence of God. 

And the truth is equally obvious that no country 
can enjoy the highest degree of prosperity, even if it 
Gan permanently endure conflicting church governments. 
Our Congregational churches must prevail, or perish ulti- 
mately ; indeed, I think I may say, no one expects 
the sects of Christendom always to continue related to 
each other as they are. The newspapers report the 
new Romish Archbishop, Manning, of England, as say- 
ing in a recent speech, just after his return from 
Rome : — " Two things are simply apparent ; one, that 
Protestantism, having, like other errors, run its course 
of three hundred years, is everywhere giving way; and 
the other, that the Roman Catholic church is strength- 
ening and expanding on every side," and the learned 
prelate goes on to say, that the "Anglican church will 
soon be what the Arians and Donatists are now, — a 
page in history." I wish there were no facts to en- 
courage such prophets and to justify such prophecy. 






11 



And while such is the boast of the Romish arch- 
prelate, other sects and sect-leaders are earnest, ac- 
tive, and arrogant as he, just in proportion as their 
sects resemble his in the worldliness of its spirit and 
the centralization of its power. And their vaunting 
is not without reason. For " the world," which ever 
"loves its own," will evermore support the worldly 
system, and forsake the divine. And when human 
devices are mixed up with God's appointments in a 
church, the human part always counteracts the influ- 
ence of the divine. 

The whole subject of church government may thus 
be considered as fairly up for discussion, and there is 
no rock on which the mind can rest, but the Word 
of God. < 

What then remains to us? Shall we, too, turn sec- 
tarians, and raise our clamor with the rest? God 
forbid. Let us ever, as we do now, love our breth- 
ren of other denominations. Let us recognize their 
baptisms and ordinations, welcome their cooperation, 
honor their Christian virtues, learn if we may from 
their teachings, and respect their prejudices, even; 
but let us see to it that we, as churches, " abide in 
Christ and have his words abiding in us." 

What, then, are the "words" of Christ touching the 
order or discipline of a church? Simply that we, in 
love, go to our offending brother alone, and " tell 
him his fault." If he refuse to hear us, " take one 
or two more," and repeat the effort ; and " if he 
neglect to hear them, tell it to the church" to which 



12 



the brother offending belongs. But if he "hear not 
the church," that is final. "Let him be unto thee as 
an heathen man and a publican ; " that is, treat him 
coolly and courteously as you would a Chinaman, 
or a Caffir: be kind to him, pity, pray for him, and 
let him alone. That is all the church-government 
that Jesus Christ has given. And this is not gov- 
ernment in any coercive or secular sense ; for with- 
drawing fellowship is not governing. If you take his 
case to a bishop, or a circuit-preacher, or a Presby- 
tery, then you attempt to govern him ; for that is 
government, whether exercised by one man or a few. 
But for a handful of men and women in a local 
church, to cease to love, and withdraw from, a mem- 
ber, who by his vices has ceased to be lovely, is 
not government, but liberty, and "the perfect law of 
liberty." 

Let us now go back three hundred years, and see 
where the Puritans stood. Their whole belief and 
practice touching the church is given by Mr. Bradshaw 
in his " English Puritanism," already cited. He says : 
1st, " The Puritans hold and maintain the absolute 
perfection of the Holy Scriptures, both as to faith 
and worship ; and that whatsoever is enjoined as 
any part of divine service that cannot be warranted 
by the said Scriptures is unlawful. 

2d. " That all inventions of men, especially, such as 
have been abused to idolatry, are to be excluded 
out of the exercises of religion." — (Neal i. 248.) 
This is Puritanism, and the whole of it. It is sim- 



13 



ply "abiding in Christ," and Christ's "words abiding 
in us." The members of the first church known in 
London to be organized upon this principle were 
arrested, and sixty-four men and women locked in 
the prisons of Newgate and Giltspur-Compten. Even 
in the days of the Puritan Cromwell, there were 
but six " Independents " or " Congregationalists " in 
that august body of one hundred and fifty-one mem- 
bers, the Westminster Assembly. But the princi- 
ple thus announced by Bradshaw now numbers 
its churches by thousands, and its triumphs by the 
rights of man it has secured ; for the influence of 
the Puritan or Congregational principle, outside of 
the denomination, is far wider and mightier than 
within. It has infused itself into and modified all 
other denominations, by showing a ready remedy for 
their oppressions and furnishing a ready refuge for 
their oppressed. Popery, prelacy, indeed no central- 
ized human church-organization, dares now oppress its 
members, lest they should cast off its jurisdiction 
and set up for themselves. Nay, the very civil 
governments of Christendom have already drawn 
light from the sun of a New Testament church. 
Hume, Brougham, and Macaulay explicitly declare 
that the Puritans put into the British Constitution 
all the liberty it contains ; and, as to this country, 
it is written by the French DeTocqueville, nay, it 
is simply notorious, that the " Town-meeting " was 
modelled from the meeting of a Congregational 
Church ; that a county was but a collection of 



14 



towns, — a State, of counties, and our Federal Gov- 
ernment, of States; so that, as a single unit is the 
element and key of all arithmetic, one free, Chris- 
tian man is the germ and principle and type of 
this mighty republic ; and the Mayflower is the 
mother of nations ! 

So, then, Jefferson Davis was not mistaken when 
he projmsed, in his speech to the Legislature of 
Mississippi, to reconstruct the country with "New 
England left out ! " or, as a clerical writer, in the 
papers at Chicago and Milwaukee, in the interest of 
Episcopacy and the rebellion, expounded it, " with 
the Puritan element left out." 

The rebel chiefs were notoriously tired of popular 
government, and wished for slavery and an empire. 
They thought they could carry the country for both, 
if they were once rid of New England ; and they 
were not mistaken. For brave as were our Western 
troops, and mighty as were their victories, they were 
led by men, in most instances, who paid fealty to 
the slave-power which waged the war, long after the 
representatives of New England were demanding the 
equal law of God and the inalienable rights of 
man. 

It is significant that in all the Slave States there 
was scarcely one Congregational Church ; but now, 
in those very States, there probably will soon be 
hundreds. The reason is, that Christ's churches could 
not live in slavery, any more than fishes can live 
in a dead sea. And the impossibility that a church 



15 



should live under a system which repealed all the 
rights of God and man, proves it a church of Christ, 
as the impossibility for Christ to live in this world 
without being crucified, proves him the Son of God. 

There were, indeed, throughout the Southern States, 
many churches governed by majority votes, but no, 
or next to no, Puritan churches, governed by the 
Word of God. Nor has the Congregational or Puritan 
principle achieved its triumphs by a sectarian sacri- 
fice of charity. The freest minds on earth from all 
sectarian bias are precisely those now grouped in 
Congregational Churches ; and this the Congrega- 
tional Churches of New England have proved, and 
more than proved, by establishing, through their men 
and money, in the sections of this vast country 
outside of New England, more churches of other 
denominations than they have of their own ! — a fact 
which has no parallel in the history of the relig- 
ions of men. 

Let us now, not in the spirit of sect, but in that 
charity which "rejoiceth in the truth," glance at the 
two systems which compete with that of the Puri- 
tans, namely : Presbytery and Prelacy. 

And, as many are ignorant of the practical work- 
ing of Presbyterianism, I would point out its un- 
scriptural features. If a brother in one of the 
Presbyterian Churches connected with a General 
Assembly is charged with an offence, he is first tried 
by " the Session," consisting of his minister and 
elders. If cleared there, he can be taken by the 



16 



prosecutor to a movable court, called a "Presbytery," 
which is made up of ministers and elders, chosen, 
not by the churches, but by the sessions. If cleared 
by the Presbytery, he can be taken by appeal to 
another and commonly more distant, movable court, 
called a Synod, which is made up from the Pres- 
byteries. If acquitted there, he can still be taken 
to the General Assembly, which may meet that year 
in Charleston or in New Orleans. 

No sane man, who should have been robbed of 
his horse, would seek to regain it by prosecuting 
in such a system of courts : so unequal, for he is 
not tried by his peers ; so expensive, for he is at 
his own costs for himself and witnesses. And yet 
every Presbyterian brother connected with either 
Assembly is content to leave his own and the relig- 
ious standing of his wife and children where he 
would consider his horse lost ! Then, the idea of a 
supreme court, called a " General Assembly," made 
up of four or five hundred ministers and elders, 
meeting once a year, and sitting two or three 
weeks, to exercise an appellate supervision over all 
the cases of discipline which may reach it by appeal 
from all its churches between Boston and San Fran- 
cisco, is simply an absurdity. The very best that 
can be hoped of such a system, is, that the worldly 
nature in itself, and worldly wisdom in its ministers, 
will prevent the exercise, in this free country and 
amid free churches, of the horrible powers it con- 
tains. 



17 



But the Christian objection to this system is, that it 
is simply an extra-scriptural human invention, wholly 
without warrant in the word of God. Every child 
knows by the very names of " Session," " Presbytery," 
"Synod," and "Assembly," that such a four-story sys- 
tem of appellate "courts" is not found in the Bible. 
Few or none of the Presbyterians, even, pretend to 
find them there. In 1837, I heard the Rev. Dr. 
Robert J. Breckenridge on the floor of the General 
Assembly, say, in answer to a question, " No one 
pretends to any scriptural warrant for this General 
Assembly." These were his words. 

If, then, this system is not scriptural, what is it? 
I answer, it is an invention by good men to govern 
the churches of Christ. It is a government for God's 
children, made without leave of their Father, or war- 
rant of his word! It is a code of rules for "the 
bride, the Lamb's wife," which the Bridegroom has 
not authorized. It is a system of so-called "courts 
of Christ," which Christ, our law-giver, has never sanc- 
tioned ; and although, like Lynch-courts in our mining 
cities, they may do good while in the hands of good men, 
they are as truly without authority from the Bible, 
which is the Christian's statute-book, as a Lynch com- 
mittee is without authority from the statute of the 
State ! 

Such is Presbyterianism as it now exists ; and its 
history is not better than its theory. In Scotland, 
the land of its martyrs and its glorious testimonies 
for Christ, as a system of discipline, it ran down 

2* 



18 



rapidly, until, in 1843, five hundred of its best min- 
isters left it, and came out, with Dr. Chalmers at 
their head, I regret to add, to repeat, in the govern- 
ment of their mis-called "Free Church," their origi- 
nal mistake ; while, in this country, as Mr. Greeley 
has shown in his history of our " great conflict," those 
General Assemblies have stood sentinels of the slave 
power, condemning it in words but protecting it in 
practice, as long as it was possible for them to do so. 

But let it be remembered that these " courts " are 
no part of the churches of Christ, but artificial, 
worldly systems, placed over them. As governments, 
they have been ceaselessly fluctuating ; and each of 
the two leading Assemblies now claims to be the true 
one, and that the other is spurious. The truth is, 
both are spurious. 

But I shall be told that their doctrine is sound, 
and that the Holy Spirit attends and seals the preach- 
ing of their ministers: — all this I rejoice to acknowl- 
edge, and acknowledge to rejoice. They are my 
brethren ; but their church-courts are founded in er- 
ror. Am I, therefore, their enemy because I tell them 
the truth ? 

I should be comparatively happy, if Episcopacy, into 
which our children, and sometimes our ministers even, 
are sliding, had anything like so fair a record as the 
Presbyterian system. 

Here, again, let me warn my hearers to separate 
the faith of Christ, which we all hold in common, 
from the systems which I condemn. 



19 



Episcopacy lias long been the State religion of an 
Empire, which, till the United States arose, was the 
first government on earth, — the freest, the greatest ! 

If, therefore, Episcopacy has made for itself an 
indifferent record, it has not been for lack of a field, 
and all the elements of worldly influence, power, intel- 
ligence, and wealth. It, too, has had its martyrs for 
the truth of Christ. Seldom, perhaps never, in the 
history of persecution, has more piety and learning 
perished together, than was burned in 1555, in front 
of the old Baliol College, where Latimer and Ridley 
perished at the same stake, — or in a single person, 
than was burned in Cranmer the following year. 
And these men, be it remembered, were burned upon 
a question of church government and rites : the papal 
supremacy and the real presence. Let no Christian 
fail to glorify Christ in these men ; nor yet in the 
Leightons, the Legh Richmonds, and the Tyngs of 
later times. 

But what we have to consider, is, the "Episcopal 
Church," ordained by Queen Elizabeth, "by act of 
Parliament," continued substantially the same by her 
successors until now, and copied, as near as may be, 
in the "Protestant Episcopal Church of the United 
States." 

Their faith in Christ they had as we have it, 
from God. But Elizabeth told her bishop, when re- 
constructing the ruins left by bloody Mary, to make 
the liturgy as Evangelical as he could, and yet "keep 
the popish people in the church." 



20 

This single sentence of the Queen's shows the an- 
imus of that organization, as an organization, ever 
since. It was worldly in its origin, and has been 
so in its continuance. It was, from the first, a Jero- 
boam's religion, based upon political considerations. 
It was born of a Queen, and has affected empire 
ever since. It is to-day in the Sandwich Islands seiz- 
ing their well-earned laurels from the missionaries of 
the American Board, and spurning from their pulpits 
the very men who have christianized the Islands to 
their hands? Let no one say that we insult it by 
comparing it with the calf-worship of Bethel and of 
Dan. Like Jeroboam's religion, it derived its pres- 
tige from the magnificence of a court. 

But this may be called theorizing. Let us come 
to facts. Episcopacy had stood as the state religion, 
sustained by the power and treasure of England, from 
Elizabeth to Victoria, — a period of two hundred and 
seventy years, when an attempt was made, in 1843, 
to rally the clergy of Great Britain against the errors 
of the Oxford Tracts, — errors of which Bishop Mcll- 
vaine said : " they do not put us on the road to 
Rome; they have taken us there" The effort was 
general and earnest. All of the clergy called Evan- 
gelical signed the petitions against the candles, saint- 
worship, purgatory, real presence, n r't tal salvation 
of Dr. Pusey and the Tractarians; when of (l(,0o0) 
sixteen thousand clergymen of the Establishment, only 
four thousand could be rallied against Romanizing iheir 
church! And it cannot be denied, that much of the 



21 



gospel-life in the English Establishment has been forced 
into it from without by the workings of dissent. For 
when men like Cobden and Bright were pressing the 
Tory interest, a patron-lord wrote his diocesan, " For 
God's sake, bishop, if you have a pious young man 
in orders, send him to us, or our people will all go over 
to the Chapel, and we shall be left in a minority 
in our elections." Thus pious stock has risen in " the 
Church." 

Nor has the American daughter of the English 
State-church a fairer record to show. Like Christ's 
disciples on the night of his betrayal, overborne by 
our great national curse and disaster, other churches 
have been derelict, but the Episcopal Church stood 
by and " confirmed " Jefferson Davis and Braxton 
Bragg when first the rebellion began to falter. 
And if the head of Jefferson Davis shall fall, it 
will be because the consecrating hands of an Epis- 
copal bishop, laid on him when his crimes were in 
their zenith, could not shield that head from justice. 
Nay, even since the rebellion has fallen, their trien- 
nial convention of bishops, clergy, and distinguished 
laymen, have refused leave to their people to g^ve 
thanks to God for the overthrow of treason and the 
emancipation of slavery ! though their slavery was 
the stone on the cave's mouth where Christ and 
human freedom lay buried ! 

" These," it may be said, " are the frailties and 
errors of men." They are the errors of a system — 
a dire and fatal system — which pushes aside Christ, 



22 



in his own temple, and sets up rites and priestisra 
in his place ! 

Spurious religious rites to-day govern the unchris- 
tian and a large part of the Christian world. And 
though we, the descendants of the Puritans, have 
their solemn declaration, sealed with their blood, 
that all rites invented by men, and not given by 
Christ, are "unlawful;" though we see in much of 
our foreign emigration the sure and certain effects 
of such rites on character ; though we know from 
the Scriptures that God " hath not respect " to the 
self-projected worship of Cain ; though we know, 
with Charlotte Elizabeth, from Moses and from Paul, 
that " whatsoever worship is not paid to God is 
received by Satan ; " that " the things which Gentiles 
sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils," not to God ; yet 
hosts of false rites and dark " orders " rising like 
mists and exhalations all around us, darkening our 
moral heavens, confounding men's notions of relig- 
ion, decoying the simple, bribing the covetous with 
promises of money, luring the ambitious with hopes 
of preferment, and dazzling the fantastic with mys- 
tery and show, hang along our horizon like clouds, 
heavy and portentous of wrath ! 

Which way soever we turn, we are met and 
challenged by rites which the Puritans abhorred. 
We cannot take up a " Christian Almanac," though 
published by avowed Puritans, but we meet on the 
cover a calendar of such days and rites as men have 
invented and added to the appointed worship of God. 



23 



Take at random a few of these names which our 
children read from our almanac covers, and see 
how barbarous they sound from a Christian pulpit : 
"Purification of the Blessed Virgin;" "Ember days;" 
" Rogation Sunday ; " " Lent ; " " Saints Simon and 
Jude;" "Saint Michael and all Angels;" "All Saints 
day;" "Holy innocents;" with more individual and 
particular saints' days than patience can recite, or 
rational memory retain; — and then say, is it strange 
that heads replete with such materials should have 
occasion for the words of Watts : — 

" How they divide our wavering minds, 
And leave but half for God." 

But such things do not, will not, leave half the 
mind for God. They soon absorb the whole of it. 
For worship in the soul, like fealty in woman, is 
for one. And if history teaches anything, it teaches 
that when human devices are mixed with God's 
appointments, the inventions always take the lead, 
and characterize the organization in which they are 
so mixed. Take the following proofs : — 

The ancient Sabians worshipped God and idols ; 
but when they had consecrated a field to both, they 
were continually taking the fruits from God's part, 
and adding to that of their idols. Mohammed re- 
formed upon Sabianism. He taught but one God, 
and acknowledged Christ as a prophet. But his fol- 
lowers dropped Christ, and to-day the creed of the 
Sultan makes no mention of his name. So the Mor- 



24 



mons, who are a reproduction of the Saracens, with 
another inspired book beside the Bible, and another 
prophet beside Christ, call themselves the " Church of 
Jesus Christ, or Latter Day Saints." But they obey false 
prophets, worship spirits, and deride the Scriptures. 
Nay, even the workers with familiar spirits among us 
put compliments to Christ in their books ; " howbeit 
in works they deny him." 

In all these instances, Satan is not Christ's fair an- 
tagonist, but his crafty rival. His method is not to 
deny religion, but to counterfeit it ; not to confront 
Christians, but delude ; not to resist revelation, but alloy 
it ; not to reject, but adulterate ; not to assault Chris- 
tianity, but to mix ; even as the spirit who infested 
the soothsaying damsel at Philippi, moved her to 
praise Paul and Silas, and mingle in their meetings, 
in order, if possible, to corrupt them and confound 
the minds of the people. Thus Satan hides among 
the very ordinances of religion ; well knowing that 
in a mixed religion, part human and part divine, 
the frail and sinful hearts of men will evermore lean 
to the human and forsake the divine. 

So was it in Christ's day. He told the Jews 
that their human worships were " vain." " In 
vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the 
commandments of men." (Matt. xv. 9.) And not 
only were their traditionary worships " vain," but as 
ever since, so then, their traditions made the " com- 
mandments of God of none effect." (Mark, vii. 13.) 

Thus is it ever. Nothing is so purifying as true 



25 



worship ; nothing so corrupting as false. All that 
Christ has appointed, — closet-prayer, social prayer, bap- 
tism, the Communion, and a Christian discipline, — every 
one is a telegraphic wire extending to and bringing 
influence from Christ ; while every religious inven- 
tion reaches and brings back a mesmerism from Satan. 

Such is the voice of history. Such the voice of 
God. And shall Presbyterians and Episcopalians, — shall 
we ourselves prove an exception to this universal 
law, that to mix religion is to destroy it? 

In our great National Council last June (18G5) 
President Sturtevant, in the opening discourse, ap- 
proved by the whole body, said : " Fathers and brethren, 
we must have done with this folly. We must make 
this ecclesiastical question one of principle." 

But what principle is there for us but that laid 
down by the Puritans ; namely, to follow Scripture 
and forsake tradition ? 

And we have occasion for devout thankfulness to 
God that our Congregational churches have been merci- 
fully kept from forsaking the Puritan principle, which is 
admitting no other rule in church government and 
rites than the word of God. There is, however, I 
regret to say, one exception ; which is, the omission 
by our churches of the name and ordination of 
Elders. 

"They hold," says Bradshaw of the Puritans, "that 

by God's ordinance, the congregation should choose 

other officers as assistants to the ministers in the 

government of the church, who are, jointly with the 

4 



26 



ministers, to be overseers of the manners and con- 
versation of the whole congregation." (Neal I. 249.) 

In the "Report on Church Polity," presented by Dr 
Bacon, and printed by our late National Council, the 
Scriptural doctrine of Eldership is expressly laid down. 

His report says: "The number of elders or bish- 
ops in a particular church is neither prescribed nor 
limited, but it is to be determined by the discre- 
tion of the church itself. ... In the American 
Congregatioual churches at the beginning, it was 
thought needful that each church should have at 
least three elders. The modern usage, concentrating 
all the powers of eldership in one person . . is 
exceptional, rather than normal." Then I submit 
that almost all our Congregational churches having 
each but a single elder and he a preaching elder, 
are on this point in an abnormal condition ! So 
thought Rev. John Wise, of Ipswich, whose able work 
is republished entire, with commendation by our 
Congregational Board. He begs for restoration of 
the eldership. 

The name of elders came into New England with 
the Puritans and was retained more than half a cen- 
tury. It then gave place to the name of " Commit m 
tee" a word taken from a town-meeting. We still 
have the eldership in fact. No church ever did or 
ever will keep up discipline without having some 
persons selected to attend to it; and all who read 
the New Testament know that such persons are 
there called " elders ; " and those New Testament el- 



27 

ders (excepting those who labor in word and doc- 
trine) were precisely what we call a " standing com- 
mittee," or a " committee of discipline." Precisely 
such were the Ephesian elders, whom Paul charged 
to "take heed to themselves and to all the flock.' 
(Acts xx. 28.) And all that our churches need, in 
order to conform outwardly to the word of God, 
which is the Puritan principle, is simply a vote to 
call our standing committee-men elders, and to set 
them apart to their most difficult work — far more 
difficult and responsible than preaching — by the 
prayers of the church. 

And why, since the word of God, the Puritan prin- 
ciple, the report in our great Council, the necessities 
of our churches, and common sense itself require it, 
— why shall not that vote pass in every one of our 
churches ? 

If Presbyterians will consider it a concession to their 
system, be it so. Perhaps they will love us the better 
for it ; but, concession or not, it is the word of God ! 
Any one taking a concordance and looking at texts 
can easily see that there is about twenty times more 
authority in the New Testament for "elders" than 
for "deacons," which is a scriptural office. And since 
we have God's eldership, why should we not give 
it God's name for it? why should we separate what 
God hath joined, — the name from the thing, — and 
send a mere unordained committee-man to exercise 
discipline and "heal the hurts" of the God's people? 
Why should the children of New England attend, 



28 



and choose officers all their lives, without once hearing 
in their church-meetings that name of office most 
common in their Bibles? I rejoice that some Con- 
gregational churches have already restored the name 
and ordination of elders, and more are considering it. 

" But why," one says, " if we have the thing, con- 
tend for the name elder?" By restoring the name 
and ordination of elders, you gain for your church 
an impregnable, because scriptural, position. You 
avoid confusion of ideas caused by putting on dea- 
cons the work of elders. And, above all, you make 
room for Christ and his " word " in our churches. 

The grand evil in our churches is not outivard 
but inward. We are in Jacob's condition before he 
saw the opening heavens and descending angels in 
his dream. God is in our churches, but multitudes 
" know it not." 

Let us then arise and purify the temples of God ; 
our own hearts first, and next his living temple, the 
church. Let us " purify our hearts by faith," and the 
churches by restoring what our Saviour hath placed 
there. Let us labor to drive out of every organiza- 
tion in this land and world, calling itself a " church 
of Christ/' the inventions that men have pushed into 
them, in the name and interest of religion. 

And oh ! let us then believe Christ's very words, 
"I will dwell in them, and ivalk in them!" "and we," 
Father and Son ! " will come unto him and make oar 
abode with him" (John xiv. 23). Let us thus make 
room for Christ in his own house. For he comes 



29 



not in the atmosphere above our heads, but in our 
hearts — in his truth — in his ordinances. Let us be 
"pure in heart" and we shall " see God." So we shall 
hecome partakers of the divine nature, (2 Peter i. 4), 
and can sing without waiting for death or heaven : 

" Oh, glorious hour ! Oh, blest abode ! 
I shall be near and like my God." 

Even a profane poet reading the story of Eden could 
see that such was our normal and proper condition, 
when 

" God walked with man, joint tenant qf the shade." 

But oh, how much more glorious the true, living, 
Christian conception that, in the words of Solomon, 
" God will indeed dwell with man ! " 

" Angels descend with songs to men ; 
And God shall dwell on earth again." 

Amen. 



LIBRARY OF CONGPP^c; 

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